Been Fishing

Well, I've been off fishing and MORE!

Doug and I drove from Knoxville, Tennessee up to International Falls, Minnesota, where we met up with my parents, their friends, and my sister. We all piled into two cars with our outdoor gear and sleeping bags and some food and headed up into northern Ontario, to Ear Falls, where we stayed the night at Gawley's Little Beaver Lodge. From there, we were flown in a teeny tiny little plane that ended up landing on a remote lake* -- leaving us to fend for ourselves for a week in a lonely cabin in the wilderness.** PERFECTION!

While we were there I did a little bit of sketching and painting, but not as much as I'd hoped. We had quite a bit of rain (the blue skies in the photo above were infrequent and intermittent, except for a couple of days) and small boats on windy lakes just aren't the best environment for comfortable (or accurate) drawing. Still -- I took LOADS of photos (in the thousands) and have many months of inspiration for painting. I have some sketchy "stuff" started in my sketchbook, and I'm going to sit down and finish things up to show you guys as I review my vacation and wish I was still there, Up North.

Can I just say, folks -- if you love the outdoors and if you even just kind of like to fish, THIS is the vacation to take, at least once in your life. Seriously. You don't have to know how to fish to catch them, just throw in a hook and wait a few minutes. There are no TV's, radios, telephones, NOTHING. Peace and quiet and wind and eagles and stars like you wouldn't believe -- and if you're lucky, Northern Lights and caribou swimming across the lake.. The Gawleys run a great operation, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

After we returned to International Falls, Doug and I headed out the very next day and took a winding back road tour home, including a nice side trip along the northern shore of Lake Superior. We had the best time traveling both ways, including doing our own version of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives ... what a fun way to travel! I feel so grateful to live in such a beautiful country, and to have had this opportunity to see it up close.

So stay tuned. It is taking me a while to sort things out -- I still haven't found my paintbrushes, but there is still a bag or two to be unpacked. But very soon -- I'm ITCHING to paint!

*Woman River Fly-In -- Lake McVicar
**sounds very dramatic, doesn't it! :-D
*** OH! and very special thanks to my sis for taking the picture of me taking pictures of eagles
:-)

P.S. does anybody know how I can map our route and embed it into a post? I tried on Google Earth and Google Maps, and can't get what I was hoping for. Sigh. I may just have to take a marker and draw the lines on a map, and then scanning it in!